Re-Election Candidate David Maurer for Stoneham School Committee

My name is David Maurer. I’ve represented the citizens of Stoneham for the past 9 years as a member of your school committee and will be up for re-election on April 4th.

When I first ran for the School Committee in 2008, the schools were starting to show the stress of the financial crisis. Having not yet recovered from the tech bubble burst of 2001 which hit Massachusetts especially hard, we were starting to feel the effects of the largest economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1920’s. We were
seeing program cuts and maintenance of our older facilities deferred. Our high school was on accreditation warning. We were still providing a good education for our students, but had lost some key programs such as
team teaching.

Over the past 9 years, we have had a sustainable and steady recovery. We stabilized the High School and secured our accreditation. We corrected the curriculum that was not properly documented and re-aligned our elementary schools across the district for consistency. We’ve built a new Middle School which brought back the team teaching model and added STEM into our curriculum. We successfully negotiated several contracts with the various unions while also building positive relationships and boosting staff morale.

I am very proud of where the schools are today and that we have a well acclaimed school system which is one of the hidden gems of the Boston area. We educate and graduate excellent students who leave with a world class education.
All of these changes and improvements are without a doubt a reflection of the commitment of the community. My responsibility as your School Committee representative is to make sure that you get the most value for your tax dollar spent, and I take that commitment extremely seriously.

Something I’ve worked towards, year after year, is that the schools continue to make careful, sustainable growth. This is a key point. I don’t want to see programs put in place only to be removed the next year due to lack of funding. This is based on the philosophy that one time funds should be used only for one time expenses. I know the pain the town went through from 2001 on to 2009 and I don’t want to see the town go through that again.

While I am very proud of our town and our school system, we still have more work to do. Growth needs to be slow and sustainable, but it also needs to be continual.

We are in need of STEM programs at the High School which is why I sit on the Technology Advisory Board. In addition, I am reaching out to corporations and universities to support our school STEM programs. This is outside the box thinking that greatly enriches our schools with virtually no impact to the budget.

We are in need of high school renovation which is why I have asked the superintendent to once again apply for assistance from the MSBA. I’ve reached out to our State Representatives to try to help secure state funds for Stoneham.
Our State Representative was able to secure a tour for Jack McCarthy of the MSBA to see and hear directly from the school committee and the Board of Selectmen about our concerns.

We as a town have some healing to do. We have had too many years of boards not working together which serves no one well. This is why I’ve reached out to the Board of Selectmen and Finance and Advisory Committee. I am committed to building communications between the boards and moving Stoneham forward.

Personally, I think as your representative on the School Committee, you have the right to contact me when it is convenient for you; not during a few set hours which are inconvenient for most. My phone number is publicly listed and its not uncommon to have someone call me, text me or e-mail me to voice their concerns.

It has been a great pleasure to serve the community of Stoneham and with your support, I’d be honored to continue serving. Please consider casting your vote for my re-election on April 4th, 2017.